Listening ANSWER KEY Page 1

LISTENING – ANSWER KEY

Candidate Number:
Place a X in the appropriate box.
Do not make corrections.
Never mark more than one box.

Task One : Short Conversations 1-6

Question Your Answer (List A) Your Answer (List B)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P

1 X X
2 X X
3 X X
4 X X
5 X X
6 X X
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P
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TAPESCRIPT:

TASK ONE:

R=researcher
H=husband
W=wife

Conversation 1
R: What was the most difficult time for you two with your baby?
W: The first crisis was the worst. We couldn’t sleep for weeks. We thought parents and baby we were
supposed to sleep in different rooms—you know, to cultivate independence.
H: To teach your baby he’s himself, not the same as you. But it backfired, because when we tried sleeping
separately, he would cry for at least an hour.
W: He just couldn’t stand to be away from us.
H: We were just as nervous as him. We didn’t know what to do! It wouldn’t stop.
R: So you were terribly worried, couldn’t sleep. How did you solve the problem?
W: The books were the cause of the problem, actually. They told us that if we kept him in bed with us,
we’d be bad parents. Yet it just didn’t seem logical.
H: If this was the right thing to do, then all the professional childcare experts must be mad, is what we
thought. So we just stopped listening to what they said.
W: Exactly, what the experts wrote didn’t make sense in a given situation, and then yeah, we didn’t listen.
We learned our lesson that first time.

Conversation 2
R: I think you had some problems when Jeremy first started school.
H: Right when he started first grade, he went from being a very curious, almost intellectual boy to someone
who never said a word in class. He just did no work.
W: At first we couldn’t believe it. We had a meeting with the teachers, but it didn’t sound like our boy. He
was normal at home: active, social and happy.
H: Yet they said that he wasn’t learning much at all, wouldn’t do his classwork, was falling behind the
other students, and so on.
W: In the end, it was luck that saved us. We got him some glasses, and all of a sudden life was grand.
H: He was himself again, participated in his lessons, did really well in school again.
R: I take it that it turns out he just couldn’t see the board.
W: Exactly. We never expected it because we both have perfect eyesight. But there’s a recessive gene in
there somewhere.
H: It was the day he couldn’t recognize me walking across the garden, that was when I realized he needed
to become my little mister four eyes.

Conversation 3
R: I understand you had problems with your son when the new baby arrived.
H: Right, barely a month past his third birthday, there’s this new arrival, a baby girl, and all of a sudden
our son isn’t the center of the universe anymore.
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W: And his first reaction was to be very anti-social. He didn’t spend any time fighting for our attention. He
just started spending all his time alone.
H: So one night we managed to convince him to play a game with the baby and us.
R: You mean that was it? His return to active participation at home was that quick?
H: No, no, getting him back into the family circle was more gradual. We coaxed him, explained things to
him, tried to make it fun for him, easy for him.
W: Right, we got him to start playing with her little by little, pushed him gently, helped him along, and
then he simply ended up having lots of fun with her.
H: Then things returned to normal pretty quickly.

Conversation 4
R: You had what, at least to outsiders, sounds like a pretty interesting problem with your teenager. I’m
sure it didn’t seem that way at the start.
W: It was awful at the start. We were helpless. We even tried putting him in psychotherapy for a while.
H: We thought that might work, but it didn’t make any difference.
W: Until we found out what was really going on. It seems he thought he would get beaten up if he didn’t
play along, try taking this pill, try smoking that.
H: There’s a lot of peer pressure. And our boy is physically small. He’s not a fighter. So we got him some
martial arts training. It was my wife’s idea.
W: Yeah, within months his whole attitude changed, he became more self-confident..
H: But he didn’t get out of the drug group by way of violence. No, they just saw he was tougher, that he
could fight if he wanted to.
W: But didn’t have to do any fighting! Amazing They say that’s the basic lesson of the martial arts, don’t
they?
H: I’m just glad our boy isn’t in a rehabilitation center somewhere, or robbing stores to buy his next bag
of heroine.

Conversation 5
R: It’s not often that somebody goes back to school.
W: You can imagine how relieved we are. I mean, we were really upset seeing our son end his education
at age 16.
H: We didn’t understand what he was saying at first. I thought he was switching classes or teachers
because of bad grades or a new interest.
W: Exactly, and then I thought he was skipping school. But finally we got it: he’s not going to go
anymore!
H: So we panicked and started taking away the things he liked or wanted.
W: With our son, soft approaches don’t work. So long talks and teacher conferences—those things were
non-starters.
H: So first we took his TV and stereo away. Then we had to stop allowing friends over. True…these
measures were harsh.
W: Yeah, don’t misunderstand. It was just his little luxuries that we put an end to.
H: So one day he announced he was going back. He thought he could live the easy life, but his comforts
were more important to him than not having any schoolwork.
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Conversation 6
R: Now let’s talk about your other boy, your younger teen. Now, he isn’t very big or particularly muscular,
is he?
H: That’s right. He’s not a big lad, but all of a sudden he started bullying his school-mates.
W: But it was really physical. There were bloody noses and black eyes.
H: And it did seem that he started it, most of the time, anyway. He seemed to like it. I spoke to him about
it once. Remember what he said?
W: He said if boxers could beat people up, why couldn’t he. Amazing. Not at all what you’d expect from
someone we thought was calm, easy-going, friendly.
W: We did try sending him to a boarding school for a while, but he was just as bad in that environment.
Finally we tried sending him to a shrink.
R: The talking cure, eh?
W: I’ve always been skeptical of it. But it’s all of us in with the counselor. That way it’s not just me, me,
me. We do the sessions as a family.
R: Has it worked?
H: I still don’t know why he started assaulting people, but at least he’s stopped since we started the
therapy.